On Tuesday, May 13, 2025, Mr. Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication, and Mrs. Loubna El Arisha, Director General of the Office of Vocational Training and Employment Promotion, signed a framework agreement to keep pace with the dynamic developments in Morocco’s gaming industry. The agreement aims to promote training and enhance professional skills among young people interested in this promising sector.

This partnership also seeks to establish effective collaboration in engineering, digital innovation, and to improve youth employability in emerging gaming-related professions, especially in design, programming, testing, and e-sports.

Under this agreement, both parties will join forces to develop new training programs that meet labor market needs. Cooperation will also focus on qualifying stakeholders and organizing in-company training courses for trainees, enabling them to better understand technological trends, economic models, and user expectations.

Thanks to this close collaboration, the Office of Vocational Training and Employment Promotion will leverage its expertise in training engineering for gaming professions to help deploy programs tailored to the industry’s characteristics. Its divisions will also benefit from specialized training identified by SILAFA (the relevant authority).

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication will work to mobilize all actors within the national gaming ecosystem to ensure the success of this partnership, notably through joint workshops and by connecting the Office with startups emerging in the field to develop appropriate training programs.

The Ministry and the Office will also collaborate to encourage startups in the gaming industry to host and mentor young trainees during or after their training, thereby enhancing their employability and facilitating their professional integration while ensuring acquired skills align with actual labor market demands.

To give strong momentum to this initiative, the two parties plan to launch three qualifying training programs covering the professions of e-Caster sport, sport Streamer, and video game laboratory technician. This partnership reflects the founders’ efforts to build an advanced and innovative national system, marking a significant step toward structuring Morocco’s gaming industry.

On April 11, 2025, Mr. Bensaid visited ISART DIGITAL, a leading video game development school, at its historic campus in the French capital, Paris.

During the visit, the Minister held discussions with the management team about the video game industry and the importance of education and training in this rapidly growing sector. He also toured several technical labs and hands-on activities that are part of ISART DIGITAL’s curriculum, and explored the school’s startup incubator, where he was presented with a selection of student and alumni projects.

In the second part of the visit, Mr. Bensaid met with professionals from the French video game industry. During this meeting, Morocco’s national strategy for the gaming sector was presented, followed by a contribution from the Moroccan Agency for Investment and Export Development (AMDIE), highlighting the incentives offered by Morocco to attract investment in the video game industry.

The Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication launched, on Monday, January 6, 2025, at the International University of Rabat (UIR), the “Video Game Creator” training program dedicated to careers in video game development, which will benefit 40 young Moroccans.

Organized in collaboration with the French Embassy in Morocco, this program is part of the implementation of the Declaration of Intent signed between the two countries last October, under the auspices of His Majesty King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron, aimed at supporting and structuring the ecosystem of the video game cultural and creative industry.

The training, which spans nine months (from January 6 to October 3, 2025), aims to strengthen the professional and managerial skills of young Moroccans in order to foster the development of the gaming industry in Morocco and to consolidate the Kingdom’s position as a key player in this field.

On this occasion, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication, stated that Video Game Creator “illustrates the full potential offered by prestigious collaborations between institutional and academic partners from both shores of the Mediterranean,” adding that this program “is intended to become a model of what Euro-African cooperation can produce in terms of excellence.”

Highlighting the importance of the gaming sector and the opportunities it offers in terms of employability with qualified and high-value-added jobs — Mr. Bensaid emphasized that with a quality program like Video Game Creator, “we can hope to reverse the brain drain, as gaming is an art of storytelling, drawing from our cultures, imaginations, and memories.”

“We are now in a position to produce a high-quality African cultural and creative industry that can confidently compete in the global market and export its excellence,” he added.

For her part, Agnès Humruzian, Cultural Cooperation and Action Counselor at the French Embassy in Morocco, stated that the program is the result of several months of cooperation with the Ministry, UIR, and the French school ISART Digital, specializing in the video game industry.

Both France and Morocco are convinced of the significant potential offered by gaming as a sector at the intersection of technological and creative challenges, cultural diversity on the international stage, and youth employability issues, Ms. Humruzian, who is also the director of the French Institute of Morocco, emphasized in her speech on this occasion. The cultural industry, both in France and Morocco, she added, is both attractive and conducive to creating employment opportunities and fostering innovation. Hence, it occupies a central place in the cultural partnership between the two countries, which encompasses training and startup incubation aspects.

In the same spirit, Karin Houpillart, co-founder and co-director of ISART, stated that the Kingdom, with its promising talents and exceptional cultural, historical, and artistic wealth, has a “unique opportunity to become a key player in the video game industry, not only in Africa but also on the international stage.”

This training is part of a larger project with a structured and sustainable ecosystem, capable of attracting studios from around the world, as well as investors, and generating new professional and economic opportunities for Moroccan talents, she explained.

The Video Game Creator Program is carried out in partnership with three institutions: ISART DIGITAL, the second-best video game development school in the world, responsible for training through its academic team; UIR, which hosts the training cycle; and the Higher Institute of Audiovisual and Cinema Professions, which will provide the necessary logistical support.

In order to reduce social and territorial disparities, young Moroccans will benefit from full coverage of tuition fees typically very high for this type of training, thanks to the partners, and will be offered job opportunities as well as housing solutions.

Some children dream of becoming architects of their own worlds by creating their own stories. This program is designed for children who wish to explore their creativity by designing their own video games.

The program is intended for children aged 12 to 16. For more information, please visit the following link: https://rabat-souissi.alg.academy/unity-3d.

Jobintech is a national initiative supported by the Ministry of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform, in partnership with the CDG Group and operated by Maroc Numeric Cluster. This program aims to enhance the employability of young talents in the digital sector by offering intensive training courses lasting between 4 and 6 months.

If you are a training operator specializing in video game programming and testing professions, you can apply to the Jobintech program via this link: https://jobintech.academy/ until January 31, 2025.

These professions are among the priority occupations identified by the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication in the Gaming industry in Morocco.

The “Video Game Creator” training program, launched by the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication in partnership with the French Embassy in Morocco, will begin on Monday, January 6, 2025. This program will be delivered by the teaching team of ISART Digital and will take place at the International University of Rabat. Young Moroccans participating in this training will acquire skills to become Video Game Designers and Programmers, enhancing their professional expertise and managerial abilities with the aim of developing the Gaming industry in Morocco.